The Book on ‘Getting Filthy Rich’ in Asia

Mohsin Hamid, author of “The Reluctant Fundamentalist,” at the 2012 Doha Tribeca Film Festival on November 18, 2012 in Doha, Qatar.

Pakistani novelist Mohsin Hamid’s “How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia” takes the form of a self-help book. Among the maxims it imparts to its nameless hero are: “Move to the city,” and “Work for yourself.” But it also contains advice that would make Dr. Phil shudder, including “Be prepared to use violence.” The novel winds up being a wry re-imagination of the self-help genre, as well as a surprisingly tender love story set in a turbulent country.

That country isn’t identified as Pakistan in this third novel by the 41-year-old Hamid. His tale of a village boy-turned-water industrialist could be set in any number of places, he says, arguing that excluding names opens the door to universality. “It doesn’t take much to make it into the story of a migrant from the countryside to the city in Caracas or Sao Paulo or Lagos or Johannesburg or Bangkok,” Hamid says.

Hamid, who spent part of his childhood in the U.S. and has a degree from Harvard Law School, has also penned the novels “Moth Smoke” and “The Reluctant Fundamentalist.”

Hamid spoke to Speakeasy via Skype from his home in Lahore, Pakistan, about his new book, writing in the second person, and director Mira Nair’s forthcoming film version of “The Reluctant Fundamentalist.”

2012 – Mirabai Films

Riz Ahmed in “The Reluctant Fundamentalist.”

So, why a self-help-book format?

It started as a joke. I was in New York, and I met a friend of mine. We were just kidding around about literary fiction sometimes being hard work to read, and sometimes feeling that it was a task, like helping ourselves. I said, oh, well, you know, my next novel is going to be a self-help book. We both laughed. I went back to Pakistan, and tried to forget about that idea but I really couldn’t shake the notion. And it excited me more and more, partly because, I started to think, maybe I actually write for self-help purposes and maybe I do read for self-help purposes.

No country is named in the book. Why not set it in a particular country – especially Pakistan?

Pakistan itself is kind of shorthand for terrorism, extremism, etcetera. The same goes for Islam, it stands for certain things. Even names. Osama is no longer a harmless name. By not using names, I sort of de-branded the world around me. I found by describing things to be what they are, rather than using the shorthand of names for them, I could see them fresh.

How heavy of a lift was it to write the cradle-to-grave stories of your two main characters, one man and one woman?

It’s easier to do in your 40s, at least for me, than it was when I was writing in my 20s or my 30s. I have children now; they live in my house. And I live in an extended family with my parents, who are getting to be quite old now. I see a generation of their siblings getting old. I’m part of a very large family in Pakistan, which has people who have done financially quite well and others who have done much less well. So maybe there’s enough experience now to begin to write a broader set of people than I was able to do before.

The novel is told in the second person. Was there something about this story that lent it to being told that way?

I think the self-help book form fits with the “you” naturally. The oldest self-help book forms, which are religious self-help book forms, often employ it. So whether you look at a direct address to the reader in sacred texts, or you look at Sufi poetry, which is really love poetry, but often spoken to the “you” of the beloved, it makes you aware of the relationship between reader and writer. That was essential to this book.

The film version of “The Reluctant Fundamentalist” comes out in April. How different is it from the story you saw in your mind’s eye?

As a novelist, I am like an architect. I sort of build a structure into which somebody goes, puts their furniture and paintings, has children and creates a home. A film is that plus interior decorator, plus matchmaker, plus everything. A film is a much more pre-imagined art form. So I actually didn’t see my novel in my mind’s eye. I build novels that are designed to be a catalyst for the mind’s eye of readers. I realized how fundamentally different the two art forms are.

Does the instability in Pakistan make it harder to write or undermine creativity in any way – or perhaps the opposite is true?

I think it makes it more urgent in a way. When the world around you feels so obviously flawed and problematic and frightening, the desire to create imaginary worlds probably increases.

About Speakeasy

Speakeasy is a blog covering media, entertainment, celebrity and the arts. The publication is produced by Barbara Chai and Jonathan Welsh with contributions from the Wall Street Journal staff and others. Write to us at speakeasy@wsj.com or follow us on Twitter at @WSJSpeakeasy or individually @barbarachai.